Chapter 22

22

We stood on a massive precipice of shining ebony at the very edge of the Underworld. Our gazes stretched over a grove of golden oaks with glittering acorns toward the star path that ran along the banks of the mystical River Lethe, born from the tears of its namesake goddess. There was no sun, but the sky was full of brilliant and vivid hues of every shade of red and pink and purple. I could see Kharon, the ferryman, up in the distance where the River Styx met up with the Lethe, his hand outstretched, waiting for a coin of passage from the souls who had come down the star path and were ready to board. The star path was the last place a living being might walk before reaching the dock that would take them into their final resting place.

In my past, Ceres had been my lover, but she turned against me when she discovered my infidelity and my deep affection for Pluto. She cast a formidable curse on us. The true path to breaking this curse was obscure yet simple: it required me to persuade Pluto to willingly consume three pomegranate seeds.

However, Ceres, in her deceit, had convinced Pluto of a different, false remedy. She made him believe that every hundred years, my reincarnation had to consciously consume six pomegranate seeds to free us both from her spell. These seeds, which she convinced me that I patently didn't like, were presented to me in various methods by Pluto's earthly form. They were never hidden; I always had the choice to see and consume them.

Tragically, this was a ruse. He had convinced me to eat the six seeds twenty-six times over countless years, and each consumption led to my death. The cruel cycle was perpetuated by the effects of the River Lethe: upon returning to the Underworld, its waters wiped our memories clean. Ceres had ensured this selective amnesia.

Pluto remembered only the necessity of my consuming the seeds, not the repeated tragedies that followed. He was oblivious to the reality of my recurring deaths, forever locked in the belief that the next cycle would be our salvation. Every century, he was convinced it was our chance to finally break the curse, oblivious to the sorrowful loop we were trapped in.

A soft, tinkling bell echoed in the distance, and Pluto's expression changed, as if pulled back to reality by its call. With a reluctant wave of his hand, he summoned Ceres. "You may come."

She materialized before us, wearing a gauzy gown of white, cinched at the waist with a metallic belt, and her auburn hair was piled high upon her head, entwined with a thin golden rope. She was breathtaking, and I remembered all the reasons why I had once spent eons as her lover. Around her neck dangled a pendant shaped like a wheat stalk, a symbol of a love that once was—a love that had instigated this never-ending cycle of joy and sorrow. I had given it to her in the early days of our romance.

Pluto tightened his hot grip on me. "Say your piece, and say it fast," he urged Ceres, the undercurrent of his voice carrying a challenge, a boundary. "I would be all too happy to banish you from this place, and with no small amount of pain."

"I wanted to acknowledge that you won." She gazed intently at us, her eyes searching our faces. "In my bitterness and pain, I thought my love for Proserpina was unparalleled, all-consuming. But seeing the love that you two share, a love that has survived countless lifetimes of separation and heartache... I was wrong."

A complex mix of emotions crossed her features—regret that to me seemed tinged with relief. "And so, my curse is undone. I relinquish its hold over you."

I found I had no anger toward my former lover, only something akin to pity. But one thing galled me. "You didn't have to kill Lillian, you know."

"I suppose it was rather cruel," she responded. "But you were starting to figure it all out, and I was loath for my game to be over. I never thought you'd solve the riddle in just three millennia."

Her eyes flickered to Pluto. "I have to admit, it was brilliant to take on the guise of Aidoneus, to convince Giulia to inspire her husband to create the Sacro Bosco. And all those monuments to help with your familiarity—Orcus, Cerberus, your bench. As soon as I got wind of that—" she broke off and looked at me, as I was the one who needed the explanation, not my husband "—I planted the seeds within Vicino Orsini to create my own statue. And, of course, found a local goodwife to call my own."

"The servant, Demetra. What did you do with her?" I asked.

"She's home and no worse for the wear. And you didn't even know she was right under your nose." She snickered at Pluto.

Heat rose around us. Pluto's patience was low, and he was ready to cast her out. But I stayed him with a hand on his arm. There was one thing I had to understand.

"The curse wasn't enough for you, though. You changed our story. Why?" I understood why Ceres cursed Pluto and me, but she had planted the seeds of rumor that I was her daughter and had been forcibly ripped from the world. Her subversion of the myth that humans ended up passing along through the centuries was baffling to me.

"Would you want to be remembered through eternity as the jilted lover?" Her nostrils flared with anger. "No! You wouldn't have. And I still don't. It was Jupiter who introduced his brother to you, and for his role in tearing us apart, I demanded he change the memory of our love in the minds of gods and men. Mine would be the plight of a mother in distress."

"Jupiter can do that?" I marveled.

"He had some help from Gaia herself, who called upon her daughter."

Gaia, one of the primordial deities. And while she had many sons and daughters, Ceres was speaking of Lethe.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of people thinking I'm your daughter," I said.

"Too bad," she sniffed.

"I tire of this," Pluto said, his ire at a peak. "You have your answers. Begone, and never come back."

"I should have listened to Venus," she said, her voice softer, forgiving. "When she heard what I had done, she told me that true love would win. I doubted her. But neither of you gave up."

Then she was gone.

"Come, I want to show you something." I took Lillian by the hand.

"Oh! It's the garden! But everything seems so pale, so dull," she said as we left the dark stars of my sacred grove and the Sacro Bosco materialized around us.

"You are spoiled by Elysium," I told her. "There is more color there." It was her first time out of the Underworld, and I had forgotten how strange that might feel for a mortal who had passed.

We stood on the path between the statue of Ceres and the orco. The garden was different—rejuvenated, restored.

"Is this the past?" Lillian asked.

"This is the future," I said with a smile. "See?" I pointed at a young couple standing near the base of the orco . "That's Giovanni and Tina Severi Bettini. Remember I told you that we filmed at the tempietto ? They saw Dalí's film and were inspired by the garden, and upon visiting, they fell in love with its magic. The Bettinis will dedicate decades to Bomarzo's renewal. Each sculpture will be meticulously restored. Gravel paths raked smooth, hedges pruned, the chaos tamed. They'll open the gates so people can experience this sublime place for themselves." I waved my hand and the garden transformed again, statues repaired and cleaned of their moss, vines neatly trimmed back from weathered inscriptions. Visitors strolled in awe along paths once overgrown.

"It's not so creepy now. It's mystical, magical even," Lillian said in wonder. "Thank you for showing me this."

Next, I took her to one of Dalí's exhibits in New York, at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting on the Upper East Side. There was one painting I wanted to see, and I thought she might too.

I propelled her to a gallery in the back of the museum, where a crowd had formed. Salvador Dalí stood in the center of it, gesticulating wildly with a white staff topped with a golden dove. He wore a flower behind his ear and his mustache was exceptionally long and curled upward. Gala stood to the side, flanked by three young men vying for her attention.

Lillian's eyes widened. "Dalí!" she exclaimed. A flicker of something complex crossed her face—nostalgia mixed with an uncomfortable familiarity. "He is such a living paradox."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"He's so deeply selfish, yet completely vulnerable and insecure. Before my spirit found its way to the Underworld, I watched him sketch my lifeless body. It was as if he was trying to capture something he himself was afraid of losing—his essence, his mortality. Yet the act itself showed how disconnected he was from the human experience, how consumed by his own mind." She sighed, her gaze still fixed on Dalí. "It's a strange mix of emotions, watching him now. I feel pity for him, for his eternal struggle to seize something he could never fully grasp..." She trailed off.

"But?" I prompted.

"But—" she smiled, her eyes meeting mine "—I also feel warmth. It's strange, isn't it? To feel warmth for someone who violated such a private moment? But he has a special sort of charisma, the kind that makes it very hard to dislike him for long. You cannot help but to be drawn toward him."

I knew exactly how she felt.

Putting an arm over my friend's shoulders, I hugged her tight. "Genius often comes with its own set of damning flaws, and Dalí is clearly no exception. But here's the thing, Lillian. We're all flawed beings, even gods. Perhaps that's what makes us eternally fascinating to each other."

Dalí struck the bottom of his staff against the floor, its sound turning every head toward him. He was talking with a young reporter who held a notebook in his hand. "When someone important dies, I can feel it, sometimes very intensely. It is a monstrous and reassuring feeling. Because that dead person has become one hundred percent Dalínian. From now on, they will watch over me, over the great fulfillment of my work."

He sauntered over to one painting. "This is a poem about death."

Lillian gasped. "I thought you destroyed them all."

I chuckled. "All except that one. It isn't a painting of me, but it's about me."

She jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow. "A muse, not an artist."

"This time Dalí was right. But remember what I said about him being flawed."

The painting wasn't large, about three feet wide and two and a half high. It had a typical stark, Dalínian landscape, where sparse trees with tiny leaves decorated a desert scene. An abnormally large, bizarre floating box broken into four corner quadrants comprised the focal point of the painting. Hovering in its center was a massive pomegranate, its crown forward. On the top of the box was a tiny figure of a man playing a trumpet, his legs dangling off the side, just like the musician that night in the boschetto.

A man next to us lectured his bejeweled wife about the musician. "The trumpeter challenges our notion of scale," he said.

"No, he challenges our perception of reality," Lillian said, leaning conspiratorially toward the man.

The couple was startled at Lillian's interjection. They gave her a funny look and backed off, making their way to another corner of the gallery.

"They don't know what to do with me, do they?" Lillian observed.

I nodded. "You are the one challenging their perception of reality. Seeing the dead is unsettling for them, even though when you are with me you appear real enough in the flesh. It's strangest for them when they hear you speak."

Dalí had painted a skeleton of some horned creature into the foreground of the image. "You see death, but this is not death. Look into the center, at this jewel of a fruit, the most perfect fruit ever devised by the gods. It floats, a key into a door, a door of death."

He paused for dramatic effect. The reporters and gallery visitors hung on his every word. "And you all want to snatch it out, to open it."

Dalí suddenly noticed me standing there. His mouth opened, and his eyes bulged. He broke through the crowd, moving toward me.

"Proserpina..." he said. "Oh, Proserpina!"

When he came close, I leaned toward him and brought his face to mine. I kissed him softly on the forehead and let him go. He turned around. He would not remember seeing me. "This painting. It is the heart of Proserpina herself!" The crowd began murmuring, not entirely sure if they knew who Proserpina was, but then someone shouted out "Persephone!" and the crowd murmured with approval.

"Paolo is here," Lillian said, her voice full of joy.

"I know. That's why I brought you. I thought you might want to say goodbye. He will only know you for a minute, so do not tarry."

Lillian threw her arms around me. She kissed my cheek and then went to where Paolo stood at the side of the room, camera in hand. His leg had healed, and he, like his employer, remembered nothing about the week in Bomarzo, save that they visited and filmed a short movie, complete with a white cat on Dalí's shoulder as he entered a simple, white tempietto .

I watched as Lillian put her hand on Paolo's cheek. His eyes brightened, and a smile bloomed on his lips. He reached into his pocket and handed her a piece of paper. She broke into a broad grin when she saw what was written on it. Then she tucked it back into his hand before kissing him deeply. "May the gods always find you in favor," she said when she broke away. He lost the moment, but a smile remained as he snapped photos of Dalí mesmerizing the crowd.

"What was on the piece of paper?" I asked when she was once more by my side.

She sighed. "It was the haiku he wrote for me."

We watched the scene in the gallery for a moment before she asked, "Whatever happened to Jack?"

"He boarded a plane to America a few days after Bomarzo. He remembers nothing."

Lillian nudged me. "Look."

Gala had pulled one of her young paramours toward her and slid her hand down toward his crotch.

"At one of his gallery showings, no less," Lillian said, astonished.

"I wish I was surprised," I said.

Lillian looked at me. "What do you mean?"

"I was curious, so I read Gala's thread of fate. In years to come, she will find herself—by her own actions—thrust into the background of the great Salvador Dalí, responsible for making the money and convincing him to work. But she never really sees him for who he is, only a means to wealth and security. His feeling for her is one of the great loves in all of history, and through her life, she feels so little for him. The world will blink, and she will find herself in Tartarus soon enough, where she will dine every night on her own bitterness."

Lillian glanced back at the gallery scene. "That's really tragic. She has no idea what she's throwing away."

"Nor does she care," I replied, my eyes meeting Lillian's. "Some people are so preoccupied with their own desires that they fail to recognize the profound emotions others hold for them. In her lifetime, Gala won't realize the depth of Dalí's feelings, nor will she confront her own emptiness. But in the Underworld, she will have an eternity to reflect on it."

"But what about Dalí?" Lillian asked.

"Dalí will continue to paint, to create, and to love, in his own eccentric way," I said softly. "His love for Gala will be both his curse and his muse. He will pass into the annals of art history as a genius, loved and misunderstood in equal measure."

Lillian took a moment to process this, staring at the earthly spectacle before us one last time. "It's a strange thing, to look at the living like this."

I pulled her away from the scene.

As we reentered the Underworld, my hauntingly beautiful realm of shadows and half-light, I couldn't help but think how life's richness often lay hidden beneath its surface, visible only to those willing to dig a little deeper.

"You know, I've been thinking. Snaring Salvador Dalí was a bit of a dramatic touch," I teased my husband when I returned. He folded me into his arms, and I was filled with his scent of leather and smoke.

"It wasn't easy convincing every incarnation of you to return to Bomarzo. And you know how much I love drama. You were an artist in this life. Besides, Dalí is a lover of food. Better to have someone else trying to get you to eat the seeds, and if it seemed he was orchestrating the show, I thought perhaps there was a stronger chance."

I laughed. "All those wild dinners? They were a bit excessive."

"So is Dalí." He smoothed my hair back from my face. "You know, sometimes I think I should thank Ceres."

I raised an eyebrow. "Thank her?"

"We have been ripped from each other's arms so many times. Every time my love grew a hundred-fold. Every time she strengthened our bond." Pluto kissed my temple and ran his fingers across my cheek. "I won't let anyone take you away from me."

"No one will ever dare," I said, letting him kiss me again.

And again.